


Captain America Wins the Space Race

by gracethescribbler



Category: Captain America (Movies), Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Hoth (Star Wars), Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, I can't tag I'm sorry, POV Steve Rogers, Ship nerd Anakin can't handle 1940s planes, Steve Rogers Lives, Steve Rogers in a galaxy far far away, The Tesseract (Marvel), the Tesseract used to explain bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:06:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24173305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracethescribbler/pseuds/gracethescribbler
Summary: Steve Rogers crashes the Valkyrie into the Arctic Ocean in 1945.Anakin Skywalker and Captain Rex find him on Hoth in 19 BBY. We blame the Tesseract.
Comments: 19
Kudos: 245





	Captain America Wins the Space Race

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ProwlingThunder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/gifts).



> Written for a prompt from the amazing ProwlingThunder! I hope you like this! <3
> 
> Might fuck around and write more bits for this? I don't know. It's a combo of my two faves though. Come chat with me at [@gracethescribbler](https://gracethescribbler.tumblr.com/) or leave a comment.

The wind howled mercilessly across Hoth’s snowfields, soaking through Rex’s cold-weather gear, his breath fogging up his HUD slightly. Ahead of him, General Skywalker and Commander Tano had their heads bent against the wind, following the Commander in charge of the outpost here, Commander Tal.

There had been a report requesting Jedi assistance, about how the evening previous, out of nowhere, one of their patrols had come across a crashed ship that hadn’t been there on their last patrol, sunk into the snow and apparently unmanned. No one had seen the crash occur, or even heard it, so they weren’t even sure how the ship had gotten there. So far nothing had changed, and the Council had assigned General Skywalker to the job.

There was already a squad combing the area, as they arrived, and Tal explained that they hadn’t ruled out the possibility that it was a droid attack ship. “It’s not the right make and it seems too junky for a Separatist fighter,” he said, “but we’re not sure what else it would be. To be honest, sir, we’re not even sure how it ended up here. I’ve never seen a model like it.”

The ship appeared to be larger than a light freighter, its wings and part of its body emerging from the snow, layered with ice and frost as if it had been there for a long time. Rex stood with Tal and Ahsoka as his General leapt lightly up on the wing of the ship, looking over the crash site.

“You’re sure this wasn’t here before?” he called.

Tal scoffed a little, quietly. “Quite sure, sir,” he answered, crossing his arms. “We know this area.”

Skywalker stood still a moment, then abruptly strode along the wing toward the hull of the ship, and Rex heard his saber ignite a moment later. “Ahsoka,” he shouted, “come here, I might’ve found something.”

Ahsoka leapt up to join him. Rex stayed with Tal, with no further orders from Skywalker, and shivered a little in the wind.

After perhaps ten standard minutes, Ahsoka reappeared, her sabers in hand and lit. “Rex, Commander,” she snapped, “we found someone down there, in the ice. We need to get him back to medical.”

Within the hour, they had removed two things from the downed ship. First, encased in ice, a Human or Near-Human figure; second, a disc of metal emblazoned with a star insignia, which Skywalker had thought might be a clue. “I don’t recognize that,” Rex said, quietly.

Skywalker nodded in agreement, and ordered Tal to have his men perform a sweep of the ship and report back. Then he and Rex and Ahsoka boarded a transport with the crash victim, and returned to the  _ Resolute _ where it waited above the planet.

Rex rubbed his hands together quietly to warm them, and Ahsoka, next to him in the transport, tapped her foot and told him, “It was strange. That ship was  _ primitive. _ The design, the equipment… I don’t know where this pilot even found that hunk of junk.”

“A scrapyard, probably,” Skywalker muttered. “That or a museum.”

Rex smiled to himself, amused, and shifted his weight, eyeing the icy figure consideringly.

“There’s something strange about this,” Ahsoka said, more seriously, shaking her head. “But I can’t sense anything specific.”

“Me neither.” Skywalker ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath. “We’ll figure it out when we get them,” he nodded at their new passenger, “fixed up.”

Steve Rogers woke up.

With only moments to decide a course of action, a plane locked on autopilot, and a hangar of bombs about to drop on arrival, he’d known he only had one choice. He’d pitched the  _ Valkyrie’s  _ nose towards the icy blue and white Arctic Ocean below and made radio contact with Peggy for a goodbye and an apology all at once.

He’d expected to die. He’d made peace with the idea in between the last moments of flight and the horrible jolt of the plane’s nose buckling as it hit the water.

But he couldn’t say he didn’t feel a massive wave of relief when he opened his eyes and saw lights and a ceiling, and smelled an odd mix of chemicals that reminded him of a hospital.

Peggy would never forgive him.

He still felt a chill, deep down, but he was warm and under a soft blanket, and he slowly rubbed his forehead and then pushed himself to sit up and have a look around.

Very, very quickly, relief turned to alarm.

He didn’t recognize a single damn thing he saw.

This… hospital, he supposed, was stark white and grey, the rows of cots the only vaguely familiar things about it. A short distance away was a huge tank of blue fluid, and around it, more shining steel equipment and tubes. There were men in grey uniforms walking around the large hospital room, and some other people in cots some distance away, but it was mostly quiet. This was the most high-tech place Steve had ever seen, and he fisted his hands quietly against the cot - Hydra must have found him. That was all he could think of, the clearest possibility that came to mind. He cast around for his shield, but he couldn’t see it anywhere, and his uniform was gone too, replaced by loose-fitting red hospital clothes.

Before he could decide what to do, Steve noticed a tall, muscular man, darker-skinned, with hair shaved in patterns, coming over towards him. Steve tensed and straightened, somewhat, and watched the other man warily.

“You’re awake,” he said to Steve, stopping beside his cot. He had an accent that sounded like something British or Australian, and now that he was closer Steve could see a patch on his sleeve with an odd symbol on it like a stylized X. It was red and white and looked like a medic’s patch. If this man was a doctor, it was unlikely that this was Hydra - Schmidt had seemed to subscribe entirely to Hitler’s ideas of an Aryan master race. The theory was somewhat comforting, although Steve still didn’t know where he was. “How are you feeling?” the man asked. He was considering Steve with a certain wariness of his own, and Steve took a breath and let it out, composing himself.

He needed to understand more about where he was and what was happening.

“Surprisingly well,” he said, nodding politely. “Thank you. Where are we?”

The man considered him. “You’re on a cruiser in the fleet of the Grand Army of the Republic,” he said, seriously. “We found you on Hoth, frozen in the ice in a fighter of some kind.”

Steve did his best to hide the fact that he hadn’t understood most of what had been said. “Right,” he said, mildly. “I crashed.”

“Clearly.” The man huffed a bit. “Well, I’m the medic here, Kix. I’m going to get my Captain and General, they’ve wanted to talk to you.”

That made more sense - this was a military hospital of some kind, then. “Steve Rogers,” Steve answered, holding out his hand, and Kix took it almost hesitantly and shook it.

“I’ll just be a moment,” he said, and turned and walked away again.

Steve propped up his pillows on the cot and sat back, glancing around again. There weren’t many people in the hospital besides himself, and everything was quiet except for a low, background hum like the sound of a power generator or a smooth car engine.

A moment later, Kix returned with two companions: a tall man with long hair and a scar on his face, wearing dark colors and pieces of fitted leather armor over his shoulders and forearms; and a man who looked jarringly similar to Kix, with short blond hair and what Steve could only call white suit of armor, with blue designs painted on it. Perhaps he and the medic were brothers, but unlike Kix, this man was carrying two guns and had an indecipherable look on his face, his brow furrowed. Steve got the impression that neither of the newcomers trusted him. The feeling was mutual, but he didn’t say so - better not to start off on the wrong foot.

“This is General Anakin Skywalker,” Kix said, gesturing at the long-haired man, which made Steve straighten further, “and Captain Rex.” The blond man nodded shortly.

“Steve Rogers,” Steve said, holding out his hand again to the General. “I have to ask, what army is this? Do you consider yourselves friends of the Allied Forces?” He wasn’t going to bring up his own military position if he could help it - not when he didn’t know where these people had allegiances. He’d never heard of a “Grand Army of the Republic,” but the pretentious name set his teeth on edge.

Skywalker considered him with almost an amused smile, and shook his head. “What do you mean, ‘what army is this’? Did you miss that there’s a war going on?”

Steve smiled a little himself at the absurdity of the question. “No, I noticed. Been on the front lines for a while now. But I haven’t heard of your forces before.”

Skywalker’s amused smile dropped, and he glanced at Kix and at his Captain, who gave a small shrug and abruptly fixed Steve with a fierce glare. When the Captain spoke, though, he was calm, which set Steve more on edge. “I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing,” he said. “Whose side are you on?”

Steve looked at all three of the men for a long moment. He didn’t believe this was Hydra, and although the surroundings concerned him, as did his missing shield, they  _ had  _ helped him. “I crashed a German plane,” he said, “but I’m American, and I’m with the SSR.”

“Oh, a planetary dispute,” said Skywalker.

Steve frowned, slowly, and crossed his arms. “What do you mean?” he asked, carefully. The phrase sounded like something he would’ve read in a comic book, or would’ve heard in a shitty movie that Bucky had dragged him to.

“Just that your war must be isolated to your planet, we don’t have experience with it - are you from the Hoth system or did you end up there by mistake? Your ship didn’t look equipped for extended space travel.”

_ Space travel. _

Steve just barely kept from gaping at this General Skywalker - he still had a better poker face than that, at least, so he cleared his throat and rubbed his neck. “Space travel?” he asked, feeling oddly nauseous. He couldn’t help but think, suddenly, of Johann Schmidt clutching the Tesseract in one hand, the way the whole ceiling of the  _ Valkyrie  _ had been obscured by a glimpse of nebulae, stars, and the night sky, before Schmidt had been burned up by the power he held so tightly.

This must have something to do with the Tesseract.

“Well, yeah,” the general said, looking more amused again. “That ship was - no offense - an ancient hunk of junk. It’s a miracle it flew at all.”

Steve rubbed a hand along his jaw, then sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. Something had clearly gone very, very wrong when he crashed the  _ Valkyrie, _ and if he wasn’t crazy and neither were these people, he wasn’t even sure he was on Earth anymore.

God, if Bucky were here he’d never let Steve live this down.

_ You thought you were in  _ space,  _ Stevie? When I said you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself without me, I didn’t think it’d be this bad. _

Steve shook himself and glanced around. “Well,” he said, “here’s the thing about that plane. It doesn’t do... ‘space travel’. Hell, I’ve never even  _ heard  _ of a ship that can travel in space.” 

Now Kix, Captain Rex, and General Skywalker all stared at him with equally concerned and startled faces, and General Skywalker rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Ah,” he said. “I’m sorry- Where did you say you were from?”

“Earth,” Steve said, tiredly. He hesitated, then stood up, which made the others tense a little. He crossed his arms and glanced around. “I’m grateful for all your help. But I think… I have one more favor to ask of you. I understand if you can’t help.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t know where I am, and I don’t know how to get back to where I came from. I think a dangerous artifact might have brought me here, and I’m worried about what might have happened to it.” He’d thought the Tesseract had fallen harmlessly into the ocean, but he must have been mistaken. How else could he have gotten here?

General Skywalker stared at him, then looked to Captain Rex as if asking for help.

“An artifact?” A woman’s voice came from the other side of the hospital, and Steve turned quickly to see a short… girl, he supposed (although she looked nothing like any girl he’d ever seen, with her orange skin and something like blue and white horns on her head), walking towards them. “You mean something like this?” And she held up, in one hand, the Tesseract, which was glowing a soft, harmless blue.

“Yeah,” he snapped, tensing and curling his hands into fists, adrenaline sparking in his veins. “Something just like that. Put it down.”

It seemed his situation had just grown vastly more complicated.


End file.
